Indescribable Lunacy
by PlanetOfTheWeepingWillow
Summary: Fresh out of Hogwarts, Harry Potter takes up his new job and, along the way, meets up with a strange man whose past makes Harry's seem like a cake walk. This man, of course, is Arthur Kirkland. Human AU, post-Hogwarts.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Harry Potter trekked under the cover of night, his wand wielded in front of him like a sword. Stars twinkled overhead, casting fragmented light down on the nearly empty rural streets. A band of rogue wizards had attacked a muggle doctor in these areas and Harry, being the only one willing enough to do such a simple job, was jostled out the Ministry and told to go find it and make do.

So Harry, who only wanted to check out of work early that day and pay his two friends Ron and Hermione a visit, ended up stalking through the night like a warden searching for some psychotic wand-brandishing muggle-haters. How absolutely perfect.

Chuckling voices and harsh insults were tossed around from one end of the street. The alley way from which they originated was lighted with a faint glow of blue and red. Hardly a sound was decipherable from the muggle.

Harry bolted towards it, holding up his wand and starting to chant the disarming spell, but the three lanky men and their female accomplice were thrown back, as though pushed by a heavy hand. They sprawled on the ground, growling in protest. Harry secured them with another spell, binding them to one another with invisible ropes.

"I guess you know who I am." Harry said, approaching them. "And now you'll be taken to the ministry. Your wands are far behind you so try nothing funny, you'll only hurt yourself more." He left the four stranded there, in the middle of the street, and went to see the muggle and what had caused them to fly away with such massive force.

In a fetal position, trembling in terror, was a man in a trench coat, bruised and beaten. His green eyes stared at Harry. "You're another one of those—those—things!" The man said, scooting away and pressing himself against the wall. "Those wand-holding-!"

Harry pressed his hand to the man's quaking shoulder. "Yes, yes I am also a wizard, but you mustn't worry about me. I won't hurt you. I've come to help you, in fact, now can you stand Doctor…?"

"Kirkland, Arthur Kirkland," the doctor replied, shakily coming to his feet and staring at Harry's similarly colored eyes. "How did you know I'm a doctor?"

"I have ways of knowing. Now, I'll make this all go away," Harry placed his hand on Arthur's forearm, ready to consolidate with the man. He really should have been taking care of the rogues and giving them a fair talking-to, but the force that had jutted them out was a higher priority, he felt. Arthur jerked away from Harry's touch.

"Get away from me," he scowled, his bushy eyebrows furrowing.

"I will, in just a moment, but tell me what happened to throw them out like that."

"I've always been able to do that vile deed, now let me be!" Arthur was near hysterics.

"Now, you wait just a moment!" Harry rushed after the man, who could not have been terribly older than he. But Arthur had already sprinted away, leaving no trace behind but a trodden bouquet. Harry bent down, picking the mashed daisies out and looking for identification. No name was written upon it. Harry stood back up and discovered that the four rogues had gotten away. The female had hidden the wand with her, somewhere, and Harry had let them escape. He had a faint feeling that Kirkland had set him up and was a wizard as well, but he never recalled seeing such a man before in his life, not at Hogwarts or Diagon Alley, nothing, absolutely nothing of the sort.

Harry sighed and wrung his fingers, deciding to follow those pesky rogues and deal with Kirkland's strange state at a later time.

* * *

_I own neither franchise displayed here. Hetalia and Harry Potter do not belong to me whatsoever, however awesome that would have been. _


	2. To Catch a Glimpse of the Past

Around the time Harry would be running from his god-father under the impression that the man was a blood-thirsty killer, Arthur Kirkland celebrated his fifteenth birthday by finding himself upside down in a tree. The most bland of pranks had called from him to have his clothing stained, his feet tied to a strong limb of a tree, and to have his books stolen. He hung there, swinging and feeling blood rush to his head. In a trash-can below him, the dirtied face of Sirius Black stared, unmoving since it was a muggle paper. He didn't care for it and faintly wanted to be attacked.

The fellow students who had pulled the prank were around the trash can, laughing at him and dusting off their hands from the dirty work.

"Going to cry to your mummy to help?" One said smugly, then paused, his expression changing. "Oh! I forgot! You don't have one!" He laughed and his goons did as well. They were two years younger than Arthur, adding to his embarrassment, but bigger than the boy's malnourished and scrawny form.

"There you are!" A teacher said, moving closer to the boys who instantly cowered and apologized. The teacher curled her lip and gave Arthur an askance look. "Get to class, boys." She said, directing them away. They nodded and, chuckling amongst themselves, obliged. The teacher went towards Arthur, picking up the stepping stool and climbing up it. She untied the binds that held Arthur up and helped him down.

He fell on his rump heavily, luckily landing on downy grass and only sending a minor tremor of pain up his spine. He collected his scattered belongings, not looking at the teacher.

"Arthur, you're too old for this." She said, setting away the miniature ladder.

"I know." Arthur muttered, picking up his geometry textbook and several pencils. "I didn't a_sk_ for them to do that to me, I hope you know. I'm an easy target." He swung his backpack on his shoulder and turned to her.

She adjusted her glasses and sighed, staring pitifully at Arthur. "You should learn to stand up for yourself."

"I did!" He said, nearly raising his voice to a shout. Catching himself, he lowered his volume to a dim mumble: "I did, once, and you remember. I sent those kids to the hospital."

Arthur clearly remembered that fateful day. Several kids were teasing him about his at-home condition. It was nothing new. Rage only added more fuel to the fire burning up inside him. However, one especially nasty student made a sly remark about his weird nature and lack of friends being the reason why his mother "left".

Arthur rose to his feet instantly and, without knowing how, sent the kid shooting back into the wall, knocking him against it. Still blinded by white fury, Arthur continued, screaming in rage. He broke one's nose and the other hit his head hard enough to pass out cold on the ground.

Teachers pried him away, trying to calm their terror in the face of such an anomaly. They had never seen a child do such things without even touching the others. They supposed it was some mad illusion and dismissed it as such, sending Arthur home at once.

"As if such an act could happen again," the teacher remarked, gesturing for Arthur to follow her towards the school, near another where Arthur's bullies were mucking around with smuggled fire crackers. "Get to class, Arthur, and I won't hear a word of it." She left him to go to his English class.

As Arthur sat in his classroom, reading ahead in the assigned novel, being already quite ahead, he did not know about the train set to leave towards Hogwarts, where his name was assigned as a student. A wand in the shop located within Diagon Alley itched to be in his hands, sitting all by its lonesome, waiting for that fated day.

At the end of the day, Arthur returned home. His apartment, which his father paid for out of the salary coming from his job at a deli, greeted him. His father still wasn't home. Arthur went into his room, in the while passing a framed picture facing the wall.

Pausing, he turned it to face him and winced at the sight. There, his sullen looking father had his arm around a pale red-haired woman, her green eyes gleaming with an ethereal excitement. In her arms was an infant with the same colored eyes. Arthur recognized himself and smiled, enjoying the sight in the supple moments before his father would return. He turned the picture away again and trudged into his room. The furnishings were little and simple: a bed and a desk. The bed was a metallic square of metal with a thin mattress atop it. The thin felt blanket acting as a cover provided for harsh winters and miserable nights. Arthur placed his backpack on the wooden chair at his desk.

The clock in the living room, just outside of his room, displayed the hour to be three o'clock on the dot. He still had a quarter hour until his father was due back. He lifted his mattress. Balanced on a metal rung was a thick, worn book. He pulled it out and gingerly felt its harried pages, yellowed from use.

It was called _Hogwarts: A History_

Arthur had read it many, many times since it arrived in the mail by an unknown sender on his twelfth birthday. This was the first time he was allowed a key to his apartment. Along with this was the responsibility of sorting the mail.

"Those bloody damned envelopes…" his father muttered at the notion.

On that day Arthur came home to a hefty bundle at his doorstep. It had his name inscribed along the front. He stole it away and hid it under his mattress, as those daredevil characters in novels did.

That night, with a flashlight, he devoured the entire history front to back. How he longed to go to such a fantastical school! To see these wizards and witches and see the sword of Gryffindor! When he finished the final pages, Arthur sat morosely staring at the cover, certain that such a school didn't exist. The fantasy "novel" was stored away, ready to be read again when the time came.

Now, Arthur perched on his bed, feeling the rungs below bite into him. He read again about the founders, enjoying the beginnings of the story more than anything. Again the pang of longing struck his heart like a poisoned arrow, spreading the toxic liquid throughout his veins.

He reached the point of Salazar Slytherin's distasteful disposition when he looked at the clock. A minute left, he tossed the book away and rushed to the kitchen, brewing some tea.

The door swung open and his father staggered in, thumping the ground with heavy steps. Throwing the door shut, he grumbled to himself, looking over at Arthur with beady, watery eyes.

"Brewing tea? How womanish! I've raised a maid…" he muttered, picking up the picture of the comely family. Cursing, he flung it at Arthur's head. It knocked him at the back of his head and Arthur bent forwards, feeling the afflicted area. A bruise formed and the picture frame shattered at his feet. With the tea on the stove, he bent down and collected the broken shards, cutting his fingers in the process, all while avoiding his father's glare.

That, however, did not float well with the portly man. "Boy, avoiding me, eh?"

"Err…" Arthur looked upwards to see the ruddy face of his father. The man had the body of a jolly worker who could grow a fine mustache and laugh his way to death, but he lacked all pleasantness for such a character to form. He was a dimwit, in many respects, especially when it came to dealing with things that terrified him. "Yes, father?" Arthur ventured.

"Yes, father?" the other mimicked in a high-pitched voice, casting Arthur an evil look. "I don't want any tea, either. It would make me effeminate coming from your hands."

Turning away, he entered his room and slammed the door shut behind him without another comment.

Arthur bowed his head, feeling hot tears trickle down his cheeks. He wiped them away, smearing blood from the cuts on his face. Tossing out the broken shards, but keeping the picture, he shut off the stove and poured out the water, washing the kettle and his wounds.

Returning to his room, Arthur listened to the continued bumbling of the man who succeeded with what the Durselys failed in doing; keeping a boy from going to Hogwarts.


	3. Running Away

So Arthur ran away from the strange, black-haired man in the dead of night, his heart pounding in his throat. Darkness settled in fully, decorated with bright stars and the orange orbs of light cut into the sky by street lamps. He had nowhere to go. Home was in the direction those rogues had fled off to and he feared they were ready to raid his home and collect that box his father had loaned him in his will, grudgingly of course.

He ran. He ran even though he hated doing it as a child, his legs at once seizing up and his asthma starting to complain. None of this was his choice, he mocked himself bitterly. The steep incline of the grassy hill strained his muscles but he continued on, his bulging pockets thumped against his sides. Rocks filled those deep coat pockets, in the case he needed to defend himself. His gut had warned him not to venture outside of the hospital that night and take a night shift, so that he may take the next day off. Something was telling him to stop running up that cliff but he continued to anyway, running straight into a wall.

Flung back with an invisible force, he rubbed his nose. No sounds were heard but his panting and the scuttle of various small animals. A light wind brewed up and stirred the leaves. He looked for the wall he had bolted into but found none. Slowly he rose to his feet, cursing and wringing his fingers.

There was absolutely nothing. Positively nothing visible was before him. He reached out to touch the anomaly before him, but loud laughter caught him off guard. He hopped away and tried to find somewhere to hide.

The jolly laughter came from three figures in the distance. Arthur thought to himself that he could wait at the base of the hill, pretend to be a vagrant, and ask for directions in the most innocent voice he could muster. Doing just so, he waited near the edge of town. The three figures stopped just outside of the "wall" Arthur bumped into. He stood and waved, "Pardon me, but could you help a lost soul?"

Harsh muttering came from them and suddenly one of the three, laughing wildly, popped out of existence. Arthur stared in horror, his jaw dropping and his heart starting to thud painfully again.

The remaining two rushed up to approach him, coming into clear view. One of them, a lanky, red-headed man, smiled at him as though the other hadn't just disintegrated. "What was it that you needed help with, mate?"

"I—I just needed some direction," Arthur stammered, still petrified.

"Where to?"

The other, a woman with bushy brown hair and a sour expression, interrupted. "I'm sorry for what you just witnessed, sir, but George, my husband's brother, he is just a prankster. He is just a riot when you meet him." She smiled politely, elbowing her apparent husband before he could make a comment.

"Ah, yes," Arthur composed himself, trying to find a scrap of dignity. "I'm Doctor Arthur Kirkland, by the bye, and I seem to have lost my way. Could you tell me where White Emblem Hospital is?"

"I'm Hermione and this is Ron… White Emblem…?" Hermione furrowed her brows. "Why, that's quite a ways away. How did you end up in this village, of all places?"

"I was mugged," Arthur said sorrowfully, "And so I ran but ended up chased. It's quite a lengthy story, but I really would like to get home as soon as poss-"

Another loud, crackling pop as though the air had been squeezed and pinched hard enough to create a tear interrupted him. He yelped and covered his mouth, feeling well over his head. The same stranger from earlier appeared before him. The dark, messy hair and bright eyes were unmistakable.

"Harry?" Hermione said, staggering back. Ron grinned at him, clearly enjoying Arthur's shock.

"Great, he's here of all places…" Harry muttered, smiling at his two best friends. "I actually came to talk to you about them."

"Oh so this is the same muggle who was attacked by rogues, is that so?" Ron said.

Meanwhile, Arthur dropped his knees, clutching his hand and mumbling to himself. "Father said they don't exist, they _don't_ exist. I've gone mad. I've lost my marbles! I've spent too much time around hysterical patients…"

"We'll have to erase his memories, now," Hermione said sadly, crouching down beside Arthur and patting his shoulder comfortingly. "Ron, go get your mother, I think we should comfort him."

"Comfort him by putting him somewhere that reeks of wizards?" Harry said, "What a brilliant idea! Really, of all people, Hermione? I expect Ron to say something like this."

"Oh shut up." Hermione snapped, "He needs someone to help him and I believe Mrs. Weasley can do it best. During this time you'll tell us what you came here so urgently to say."

"Fine," Harry said stiffly. Ron went back, calling loudly for his mother.

Arthur continued to mutter, not yet crying, but still horrified witless.


End file.
